33 dead as roof of private school collapses in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD — At least 32 schoolchildren and one teacher were killed on Thursday when the roof of a school collapsed during morning classes in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, police and rescue officials said.

Rescue workers spent hours pulling children from the rubble of the privately run Al-Khair Education Center, while panicked parents and relatives gathered outside the building seeking news of their loved ones.

Most of the students killed were under 13. At least 45 people suffered major and minor injuries, said Arif Khattak, regional director of the Rescue Department.

Television footage showed rescuers clawing through debris with their bare hands and carrying bloodied children to waiting ambulances as relatives and residents crowded the narrow alley where the school stood.

A higher-floor roof collapsed onto students in classrooms below, crumpling two stories of the building, a rescue official said.

"The fatalities include 12 girl students and a female teacher," Lady Reading Hospital spokesman Mohammad Asim said.

Three children were in critical condition, with head injuries, Asim said, adding that most of the 20 injured brought to that hospital had been treated and sent home.

The incident took place at 8:48 am, and the rescue operation lasted for four to five hours, Khattak said.

"It was a weak building structure," Peshawar police chief Mian Saeed Ahmed said. "Its roof was overloaded with construction on a weak structure, which caused the collapse."

Saeed said the school's owner had been arrested and that authorities had opened an investigation.

Distraught relatives accused the school of ignoring concerns about the building's condition and demanded accountability.

"Make an example of them, a lesson for all, so that no one dares open a school just to make money without providing facilities," said Mohammad Zaman, who lost his two nephews in the collapse.

Earlier, police chief Saeed said he feared the death toll could rise as just 47 of the 110 students in three classrooms at the time had been rescued.

There was no immediate comment from school officials.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed sorrow over the tragedy and offered condolences to the victims' families, according to a statement from his office.

Roof and building collapses are common in the South Asian nation of more than 240 million people.

In June, more than a dozen children were killed in a roof collapse at a tutoring center in the eastern city of Lahore.

AGENCIES-XINHUA